In my post “Why Am I Writing About Gi vs. No-gi” I talked about the differences between the two in my opinion and how I was going to but my thoughts to the test. I did compete in a No-gi tournament. I did lose and it was not for the reason I would have expected. I couldn’t get the guy to let go of my wrists and I showed forth some really poor escape technique. I was also very unprepared for the intensity with which I was meet. I was too relaxed about it. The match went like this: After some grappling back and forth he got both his hands around my neck and we just sunk into guard position. I quickly passed his guard and got him in cross body. This is when I couldn’t get him to let go of my wrists. I transitioned in a upper cross body and worked his legs. I made a nice smooth transition to mount and began looking for a arm bar. I was in complete control at this time. I was up 7 zip, then things went bad. He managed to get a hold of my wrist on one side and with a nice upa rolled me over. I escaped being mounted by pushing him right over me. Before I could completely turn around he hit me broad side and fell into mount on me. It was tied up at that point. I could have still won but I made a sad attempt at escape from mount and then I make the critical mistake of turning on my side giving him a easy arm bar. I was especially upset with myself after seeing the video when I realized I didn’t try a hitch-hiker escape. I didn’t try any escape. It was a sloppy arm bar too. I was stunned by the speed of everything and the intensity. Do I feel No-gi is a subset of Gi still? Yes. Do I feel you should train Gi first and then No-gi still? Yes. Will I do another No-gi tournament? Yes! But not before I have a few classes to get the feel for the speed and bump up my intensity. All BJJ rocks! I learned a lot from that 3.5 minutes on the mat. Just like when Helio Gracie came away from losing to Kimura. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

This entry was posted
on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.